


I Tell You, I'm Hooked

by DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee



Series: Big Kids, Look at Us Now [1]
Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Aged-Up Characters, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Human Rayla, Human everyone, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Soren taking care of Callum, They're All Over 18, This is so soft, college shenanigans, i guess?, no magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-07 17:17:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16412621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee/pseuds/DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee
Summary: “What’s Callum got to say?” Claudia asks.Soren kicks her,“That we’re not co-dependent, you just like psychoanalyzing anything that moves,”“Wow, that’s two things that aren’t true in one sentence!” Claudia grins.Soren sighs and goes back to texting Callum. They’re not co-dependent. They’re friends. Family friends.Five times Soren dropped everything to run off and help Callum and one time Callum returned the favor.





	I Tell You, I'm Hooked

**Author's Note:**

> Haha, guess I'm writing Dragon Prince fic now? 
> 
> All the characters are older here (since, college AU) - Soren's 21, Claudia and Rayla are 19, Callum is 18, and Ezran is 14.

“Yep, definitely codependent.” Claudia summarizes out of absolutely nowhere. If it weren’t for reflexes honed by years of playing any competitive sport that would take him, Soren would have jumped or at least dropped his phone. As it stands, he just twitches a little (a lot) and glares up at his sister as she leans over the back of the couch, trying to read what he’s typing.

            “Don’t diagnose me,” he complains, pulling the phone out of her line of sight and finishing his text. “Just because it’s in your Psych 101 textbook doesn’t mean it’s true.”

            “No, that one was from the internet,” she says breezily, coming around to plop gracefully on the end of the sofa and put her feet in his lap. “Tell Callum I say hi.”

            “No,” Soren says without thinking, then tries to backtrack, “How do you know I’m texting Callum?”

            Claudia arches a single dark eyebrow, “Because 99% of the time, you _are_ texting Callum?”

            “Maybe this is the 1%,” Soren shoots back stubbornly.

            “It’s nooot~” Claudia sing-songs, flipping open a copy of National Geographic.

            Soren’s phone buzzes like a traitor in his hands.

            “What’s Callum got to say?” Claudia asks, because apparently she has no soul.

            Soren kicks her and she shoves icy toes up his pants leg in retaliation, making him yelp and jump away from her.

            “That we’re not co-dependent, you just like psychoanalyzing anything that moves,” Soren grumbles, frowning at his phone.

            “Wow, that’s two things that aren’t true in one sentence!” Claudia grins.

            Soren sighs and goes back to texting Callum. They’re not co-dependent. They’re friends. Family friends. They’ve known each other since Soren was seven and Callum was three. Cal and his mother had moved into the house next door and Soren decided then and there that Callum was going to be his responsibility.  He marched over to the neighbors’ knocked on the door – not of the house, of Ms. Sarai’s car – and said “Can I have your baby?”

            Which, in hindsight, was not a good way to introduce yourself, but once Ms. Sarai realized Soren was seven and just wanted to play with her son (and possibly keep him as a pet; despite having a younger sister, Soren was not entirely clear on what you did with toddlers once you acquired them), she agreed to time-share Callum with him. Soren had been as delighted as a seven-year-old could possibly be.

            It was Soren that showed Callum the neighborhood and all the best climbing trees and the hollow spot in the big backyard tree that you could hide in when the big kids chased you. Growing up, it had been Soren that teased him when he couldn’t play baseball without yelping and ducking away from the ball, and it had been Soren who taught him how to catch instead of flinch, and it had been Soren that punched the biggest kid in Callum’s third grade class when _he_ made fun of Callum’s catching failures. Soren threw Callum in ponds and taught him how to catch worms for fishing (not that either of them ever caught any fish – Callum’s little brother Ez got teary-eyed every time there was even a chance of them having anything on the lines). Soren could dump snow down the back of Callum’s coat, but the first big kid to hit him in the face with an ice ball was going down hard and fast and not getting up for a long time.

            The way Soren saw it, he’d claimed Callum like baggage at the airport fifteen years ago, and that meant that Callum was his responsibility, full stop.

            So yeah, if Callum needs help editing a paper, Soren is on it.  If Callum needs someone to settle an argument between him and Ez about who would win in a death match – Darth Vader or Darth Maul – Soren is on it (Darth Vader, _duh_ ). If Callum needs someone to drop everything and pick him up from a college party that got busted by the cops, _Soren is on it_.

            It isn’t _codependency._ It’s being a good best friend. It doesn’t matter (much) that every now and then Soren will feel the painful twinge in his chest reminding him that Callum may be _his_ best (only?) friend, but _he_ certainly isn’t _Callum_ ’s. That would be ridiculous.

            So yeah. Claudia is tooootally off-base on that one.

            They aren’t co-dependent; Soren is just a smidge _dependent_.

            He’s fine. It’s fine. Everything is totally, perfectly a-okay, all good in the neighborhood. Peachy keen and all that jazz.

            In the meantime, he needs to text Callum back to tell him not to take what that one pretentious professor says seriously, you don’t need to know fucking _French_ to be able to truly appreciate 18thcentury literature.

            Claudia gives him a knowing look when one of Callum’s snarky one-liners makes Soren choke on a laugh five minutes later and Soren resolves to flip her off the couch when he gets the chance.

…

**One.**

            Soren’s at a party and he’s a little buzzed but not drunk, not really. The team’s scattered all over the house, all in varying states of slightly tipsy to completely trashed. The air smells like sweat and weed and someone’s turned off most of the living room lights and just left string lights on. Dua Lipa croons from speakers perched on top of the TV and Soren wonders if he should tell the girl leaning on his front and mouthing at his neck that he’s really not that into it before she starts slipping hands under clothes.

            Normally he could play along. He’s never really into it, but it can be kind of nice getting lost in another person. He doesn’t ever look at a person and immediately go _“yeah, THAT”_ but he’s broadly fine with messing around when he’s in the mood to be paid attention to. He likes that. He likes someone’s focus all on him for once.

            Claudia says he’s suffering some negative repercussions from their father’s benign neglect, but that sentence has way too many words with _way_ too many syllables for him to care about so he’s just going to ignore her pop psychology.

            He’s a little relieved when his phone buzzes and he can detach from the girl, who pouts and whines about him being “No _fun_ ,” before wandering off to find more rosé apple cider or someone else to lean on.

            It’s Callum. Soren’s mouth twists up into a smile involuntarily.

**Cal:** u busy?

**Soren:** nah at a party

**Cal:** oh, sorry

**Soren:** it’s kinda lame, what’s up?

**Cal** : It’s fine. I can call Campus Safety or something. It’s okay. I’ve got their number. And my phone. I mean, obviously I have my phone. I’m texting you. From my phone. It’s all good!

**Soren:** Liar-liar-pants-on…k, why r the pants on fire?

**Cal:** Srsly, it’s fine!  
**Soren:** No one ever explained this 2 me. Why does lying set the pants on fire? WHY, CAL??? WHY ARE THE LIAR PANTS BURNING????

**Cal:** are you high?  
**Soren:** Drunk, lil bit, lil bit drunk

**Cal:** Can you pick a lock?

**Soren:** Drunk?  
**Cal:** Either. Drunk or sober. I’m just locked out of my dorm and…

**Soren:** On my way

**Cal:** You don’t have to

**Soren:** You don’t have be a dumbass and yeet…

**Cal:** Did you just insult AND meme me in the same sentence?

**Soren:** Which dorm r u in?

**Cal:** u practically live here, how do u not know?

**Soren:** I’ll figure it out.

**Cal:** why do I get the feeling you’re just going to wander all over campus screaming my name until you find me?

**Soren:** how did u kno?

**Cal:** I should have texted Rayla.

            For the record, Soren thinks it was a really unfortunate coincidence that a Campus Safety officer saw him trying to pick the dorm lock at the exact wrong time and hauled them both into his office. They got off with a warning, but Callum was fined for getting locked out for the third time and Callum got into a weird slap fight with a drunk and floppy Soren over who got to pay the fee.

            He then had come up with an elaborate lie about dental surgery and painkillers to explain why Soren was, in fact, drunk and floppy on campus grounds.

            Fun times were not had by all.

            Soren still figures it’s better than that lame party.

…

**Two.**

            Soren hadn’t been napping, per se, more ‘resting his eyes while working on his paper for economics, a paper he maybe hasn’t actually contributed to in the entire time his laptop has been open today’ when the text came in. But now he’s cracked an eye open and is squinting at an increasingly hysterical thread in Callum’s group chat.

            (Callum’s group chat, as in, Callum started it and everyone just sort of went ‘okay, I guess we’re friends now’, not a group chat in which there is nothing but Soren and Callum because that would be both sad and not even and actual group chat.)

            In any event, Callum was the one to pull them together and it is Callum that everyone has come together to mock in time of crisis.

**TEAM AWESOME(LY HORRIBLE)**

**Yer a Wizard ‘arry:** SOS I NEED HELP

**i studied the blade:** what’s up?

**Yer a Wizard ‘arry:** RAYLA, THANK GOD, I NEED HELP, I’M IN THE LIBRARY

**Dr. Dolittle:** …but you like the library…

**i studied the blade:** Did u get lost again?

**Yer a Wizard ‘arry:** No!

**Dr. Dolittle:** You got lost?

**Yer a Wizard ‘arry:** *once* and that is so not the point, Ez!

**i studied the blade:** u said sos and then u said library, what was i supposed to think?

**Yer a Wizard ‘arry:** Maybe ‘let Callum finish his cry for help before interrupting’?

**i studied the blade:** That was way too long, we need to work on your comebacks

**Yer a Wizard ‘arry:** RAYLA

**i studied the blade:** so sorry to step on your delicate fragile feelings i feel so terrible how will i cope how oh why am i like this

**Dr. Dolittle:** …wow, you’re so good at sarcasm. That was so mean but so funny.

**i studied the blade:** it’s a gift

**Yer a Wizard ‘arry:** STILL HAVING A CRISIS HERE

**Magical Girl™:** yeah, I want to know what his library crisis is

**Yer a Wizard ‘arry:** thank u, CLAUDIA. The rest of you are fired. Claudia’s my only friend now.

**Do u even lift, bro?:** wtf even is this crisis?

**Magical Girl™:** Hi Soren!

**Dr. Dolittle:** *gif of someone face palming*

**Yer a Wizard ‘arry:** So I’m at the library, right? And I’m in the back corner in the second floor stacks where it’s quiet because I have this stupid huge research paper, and I’m trying to work on it and suddenly I hear this couple. And they’re just, like giggling and flirting and stuff but…

**i studied the blade:** GET TO THE POINT

**Yer a Wizard ‘arry:** I THINK THEY’RE HAVING SEX OR ABOUT TO BUT IT’S BEEN TOO LONG AND NOW IF I ASK THEM TO STOP IT’LL BE WEIRD BUT OH GOD THE NOISES ARE SO GROSS AND I JUST WANT TO WORK IN PEACE OUT OF THIS AWKWARD HELL

**Dr. Dolittle:** Executive decision, I’m too young for this conversation. Dr. Dotlittle out, PEACE. (ps hope you get away from the couple, Cal)

**i studied the blade:** …I’d take care of it, but I’m in the middle of a tutoring session

**Yer a Wizard ‘arry:** THEN WHY ARE YOU TEXTING BACK???

**i studied the blade:** your crisis was more interesting than this study guide

**Magical Girl™:** I’m off campus so I’m no help, sorry Cal!

**Yer a Wizard ‘arry:** they stopped even trying to hide it. Are they auditioning for a porno? This is borderline traumatic.

**Do u even lift, bro?:** On my way

**Magical Girl™:** Ew, gross

**Do u even lift, bro?:** To rescue Callum, duh. Give your dirty mind a rest.

**i studied the blade:** how are you going to rescue him?

**Magical Girl™:** I thought you had a paper to write…hmm…

**Do u even lift, bro:** Plans are for other people, I’ll figure it out when I get there

**Yer a Wizard ‘arry:** Please hurry.

            Soren still doesn’t have a plan when he arrives at the library, but he does have absolutely no shame so that’s a plus. He just heads for Callum’s favorite study corner and figures he’ll wing it when he gets an idea of just what’s going on. When he starts to hear moaning and spots Callum curled up in an armchair, surrounded by papers and books and the aura of one yearning for a lighting bolt to come out of the sky and set everything on fire, he just opens his mouth and blurts out, “Hey, I just finished the first draft of my paper on syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases, wanna proof-read it?” at top volume.

            Callum looks like he’s about to choke on his tongue or maybe just die of shock and shame right on the spot. The moaning stutters slightly.

            Soren, who has realized with the kind of dawning horror that only comes when one has done something so embarrassing and impulsive that actually existing as a person in this moment becomes a kind of out of body experience, figures he kind of has to lean into the syphilis trivia now. Which is not something he’s ever thought about doing, in any context.

            “Did you know that some forms of syphilitic infection can lay dormant for years in the victim’s spine until suddenly presenting symptoms years after initial contact?”

            Callum’s jaw has actually dropped as Soren continues meandering up the aisle, discussing aggressive historical STDs in a loud conversational tone with…pretty much no one.

            “A ton of middle-aged men were sent to asylums for sudden onset madness in the 1800s because the syphilis they contracted sexing up anything that moved in their early twenties stuck around in their spines before driving them crazy and completely paralyzing them in their forties and fifties.”

            The moaning has tapered off into awkward shuffling.

            Callum looks equal parts shocked, disturbed, and impressed. Soren tries not to preen. It’s very rare that he can impress bookworm Callum with his knowledge.

            “Paralytic syphilis leads to fits and eventually full-body paralysis. They think Vincent Van Gogh’s brother died from it or something similar.”

            The moaners are shuffling away now, Soren can hear them staggering their shame-faced way through the stacks, wherever they are.

            “In the 1500s the Italians called syphilis ‘the French Disease’ and blamed French invaders for spreading it. There were a bunch of super horrible human experiments in the 1900s meant to study syphilis,” Soren throws out there in case the moaners and shufflers are still out there.

            Callum stares at him like he’s grown another head or maybe presented him with a gift-wrapped dead rat as a token of friendship.

            Soren shrugs, “It got rid of them.”

            “I never want to hear the word ‘syphilis’ ever again,” Callum says faintly, “I may have to throw up in a minute.”

            “Just don’t do it in the library,” Soren suggests, “Someone might complain.”

            Callum rests his head on his knees and laughs until he might actually be sick.

            Soren smiles smugly and preens a little. But only when Callum can’t see him.

…

**Three.**

            This time it isn’t even a text message; it’s a live and in-person messenger that sends him running to Callum’s side.

            Soren is in the main dining hall, ice packs saran-wrapped to his shoulders and knees after a particularly exhausting baseball practice, piling his plate high with overcooked spaghetti and runny marinara sauce when Rayla nearly crashes into him. One of the dining hall attendants is at her heels, telling her “You can’t enter this way, you have to swipe your card, you can’t – ”

            Which. Telling Rayla Moonshadow ‘you can’t’ is pretty much a 100% garauntee she’ll find a way to do it just to spite you.

            But Soren’s not going to tell anyone that. They can figure it out for themselves just like he did her freshman year when she showed up at soccer practice and said “they cut the girl’s team because of low participation numbers and some budget bullshit, I want to try out to play with you losers.”

            Anyway. He’s got his spaghetti, his ice packs, and the nagging feeling that he’s going to have a lot of aches and pains when he’s an old man if he’s not careful when Rayla comes crashing through the dining hall’s orderly system just to yell, “SOREN, CALLUM’S IN THE HOLE.”

            All things considered, Soren figures he’s pretty justified in slamming his tray down and saying “I knew this would happen.”

            The Hole, for the uninitiated, was one of those quirky college things that’s so annoying and bizarre everyone is equal parts exasperated, infuriated, and disgusted by it, but also strangely proud of it. Like they secretly enjoy being able to look at something and say “See that ridiculous, pointless, arguably incredibly dangerous and against some kind of municipal code _thing_? That’s our thing. We made that dumpster fire. Gaze upon it and tremble at our capacity to shoot ourselves in the metaphorical foot in new and innovative ways.”

            The Hole was a studio art major’s capstone project. Every Friday the art major in question crawled down into a hole he’d dug outside one of the art buildings and did some kind of performance piece/art installation thing where he just…dug The Hole deeper while one of his musically inclined buddies improvised on whatever instrument they wanted. Or, for reasons known only to the hole-digger, he filled in The Hole partially while his personal soundtrack played. He never filled it in all the way. That apparently would defeat the purpose of the whole Hole installation.

            Soren thought it was the dumbest thing he’d ever heard in his entire life. But also probably the funniest in a sort of ‘inherent chaos of the universe, I bet I could make a million good puns out of this if I tried’ kind of way.

            The rest of campus thought it was the closest thing to free entertainment any of them were ever going to get.  They were probably right.

            But there was another side to The Hole, that being the fact that it is a literal _hole in the ground_ and that means that unless a person is really paying attention they have a chance of toppling into it if they race around the art buildings too willy-nilly. And as pretty much everyone was always running late to _something_ at least once a week someone had to be fished out of The Hole. The student body collectively agreed not to report most of these cases to the faculty (although the faculty was definitely aware of and not entirely thrilled about the massive hole in the ground) in case someone decided to throw their weight around and make the art major fill in The Hole for good.

            It was really only a matter of time before Callum fell in. 

            Soren didn’t even set down his plate of spaghetti. If he had to fish Callum out of The Hole he was going to need his fuel.

            “Okay, how bad is it?” he asks, then, because he can’t resist, he says “I want to look at the situation hole-istically.”

            Rayla snorts with laughter as the two of them leave the dining hall and it’s protesting staff behind. Rayla is a good friend.

            “That pun was terrible.” Nevermind, Rayla is dead to him.

            “Would you call it un-hole-y?” he tries again through a mouthful of pasta, flicking droplets of sauce in every direction as he struggles to cram pasta in his mouth while on the move.

            “Your jokes are a… _hole_ other problem,” she rolls her eyes and they trade grins. Okay, Rayla’s back in his good graces.

            Soren has almost finished his spaghetti (and is kind of regretting scarfing down a bunch of carbs and then dashing across campus on a full stomach) when they arrive at the hole in the ground.

            Callum is hunched miserably at the bottom of it, a wide stripe of dirt smudged across one cheek, his usual golden brown skin is pale and he’s got one leg stretched out in front of him.

            Wait.

            “You didn’t say he was hurt!” Soren protests to Rayla, who just shrugs.

            “Why else would I need help getting him out?.”

            “It’s just a twisted ankle,” Callum’s voice drifts out of The Hole.

            “Does it hurt?” Soren snaps irritably, unaccountably angry at The Hole for hurting Callum, at Callum for hurting himself, at Rayla for trading hole themed puns with him instead of informing him of this _vital information_.

            “Yes, duh?” Callum says, “It’s a sprained ankle!”

            “At least he’s not the strong and silent suffering type,” Rayla says lightly.

            Soren throws his hands up in a strangely Callum-esque gesture of exasperation. His friend…person…whatever Callum is…HIS CALLUM is in a HOLE and INJURED.

            “Let’s just get him out of the stupid Hole,” Soren huffs, peering down at Callum, “You know you’re an idiot, right?”

            Callum gives him a strange look that’s halfway between indignation and shame. “I fell in a hole! Hundreds of people since the dawn of time have fallen in holes! They’re very perilous!”

            “You’re a studio art major, your people made this Hole, you should be very aware of its presence.”

            “I’m an _Art History and Curatorial Studies Major_ ,” Callum spits at him, like that’s an important and necessary distinction. Soren shrugs. Art is art. You make it or you stare at it. Callum does both apparently.

            “Whatever, nerd.”

            “Artist and historian!”

            “Nerd.”

            Between Soren and Rayla they manage to fish Callum out of The Hole with lots of dirt and flailing. He does not emerge gracefully or smoothly, but he does manage to end up between them, one arm over each of their shoulders as they help him limp toward the infirmary.

            “You know, this would be easier if one of you just supported me,” Callum observes as they totter along, one of his arms reaching up to drape over Soren’s shoulders, the other hanging down slightly to hook around Rayla’s. With their height difference he sort of sways between them like a confused magnet in a wonky Newton’s cradle.

            Soren has always been a creature of impulse. That’s his excuse for when he rolls his eyes, ducks out front under Callum’s arm and, before the other boy can overbalance, scoops him up in an inelegant princess carry and just keeps walking to the sound of Rayla’s choked-off laughter.

            Callum sputters for several hilarious seconds before finally managing to spit out an indignant, “SOREN! I’M NOT PRINCESS PEACH AND YOU ARE NOT AN ITALIAN PLUMBER!”

            “Such nerd, much wow,” Rayla deadpans and Soren would give her crap for using such an outdated meme, except it’s really funny and he’s laughing too hard for the critique to really be effective.

            “No way I’m Mario, I’m too tall, blonde, and gorgeous,” Soren agrees easily to Callum’s angry-cat noise of protest.  His dark hair is still mussed and dirty from falling in The Hole, and his hands are flying around like his whole goal is plausible deniability if and when he takes Soren’s eye out with a roving thumbnail.

            He’s warm and heavy, but not too heavy in Soren’s arms, not to mentioned covered in dirt and adorably verbose in his frustration and all is right with the world. Soren congratulates himself on a rescue well-executed and tries not to think too hard about the phantom feeling of warmth left in his chest after he sets Callum down in the campus clinic and walks away.

…

**Four.**

Soren has decided he and Rayla make a good team. This is why she’s his first contact when he gets a text from Callum reading “The hell meeting’s begun, pray for our souls”.

            It is common knowledge that Callum’s RA is a neurotic lunatic and not the good kind. There are plenty of generally harmless and entertaining neurotic lunatics out there in the world, Soren is sure. Callum’s RA just isn’t one of them.

            Soren knows what goes into being an RA – Claudia is one, after all, and reportedly pretty good at it. He’s not surprised, she has the kind of ‘cool aunt’ vibe every freshman wants from their resident student-aged authority figure. She holds hall meetings only when necessary, and keeps them as short as possible. Just long enough to spit out the information and feed everyone free snacks. She does hall bonding events every Thursday night, which are nothing like hall meetings except for the free food, the free food is a constant. Claudia gets an allowance from student services for hall events and she is not afraid to use every penny.

            Callum’s RA, on the other hand, apparently does not believe in fun or hall bonding activities that do not involve all the residents sitting quietly in the dorm common room while he paces and lectures them on their many infractions.

            He once threatened to report Callum to student services over a lamp. A _lamp_. (A lamp, which, coincidentally, now resides in Soren’s off-campus apartment because a $25 lamp from Target was not the hill Callum wanted to die on.)

            As the semester wears on the hall or ‘hell’ meetings get longer and longer and more and more tedious.

            Today Soren has decided to do something about it. Today Soren has decided to strike a blow for justice, for freedom, for students stuck living in this particular hall of this particular dorm specifically named Callum. And Soren needs Rayla’s help.

**Soren:** we need to rescue Callum

**Rayla:** ok

**Rayla:** from what?

**Soren:** hell meeting

**Rayla:**???

**Soren:** hall meeting. From hell. Are you helping?

**Rayla:** Yeh, let me get my sword

**Soren:** I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you don’t need your sword

**Rayla:** Get yours, we need to look impressive

**Soren:** Yeah, sure, ok

            They burst into Callum’s boring meeting with an impressive battle-cry, brandishing their swords and wearing as much costume armor as they could scrounge up from Rayla’s LARPing group on extremely short notice. The cloaks help too. There’s nothing quite like bursting into a room carrying a sword and swirling a cloak behind you.

            “YOU” Rayla points her sword dramatically at Callum.

            Callum makes a vague ‘me?’ gesture at himself.

            “YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN,” Soren confirms in his most dramatic voice.

            “COME WITH US AND FULFILL YOUR DESTINY,” Rayla seconds.

            Callum stares at both of them then kind of shrugs like ‘what are you gonna do?’ and gets up to follow them, nonchalantly swinging his backpack over one shoulder as he goes.

            “You know you didn’t have to do this,” he mutters under his breath.

            “Lalala, I can’t hear you,” Soren mutters back because he’s great at this maturity thing.

            Callum elbows him but it’s gentle and friendly.

…

**Five.**

            Soren wakes up from a (totally intentional and not at all accidental, haha, what are you talking about?) nap when his phone buzzes. Peeling his face off his open econ textbook, he reaches over and thumbs open his iphone’s screen.

**TEAM AWESOME(LY HORRIBLE)**

**Magical Girl™:** Soren.

**Magical Girl™:** Soren.

**Magical Girl™:** Soren.

**Magical Girl™:** SOREN CHECK UR MESSAGES YOU LOPSIDED DUMPSTER DONUT

**Dr. Dolittle:** What does that even *mean*?

**Magical Girl™:** It means CHECK YOUR PHONE, SOREN

**Do u even lift, bro?:** WHAT, CLAUDIA

**Magical Girl™:** Someone needs to go rescue Callum before he turns into a popsicle and I nominate you as tribute.

**Do u even lift, bro?:** Resuce him from what? And why me?

**Magical Girl™:** Consider the order in which you asked those questions and get back to me.

**Dr. Dolittle:** What’s wrong with Callum????

**Magical Girl™:** He and Rayla have a massive comp sci project due tomorrow and since I know *Rayla* is currently passed out from pulling an all-nighter LAST night, I’m betting Callum is still nerding out in the lab right now.

**Do u even lift, bro?:** …and….?

**Magical Girl™:** AND THEY TURN THE HEAT WAY DOWN AT NIGHT BECAUSE THE COMPUTERS NEED A CLIMATE CONTROLLED ENVIRONMENT AND NO ONE IS NORMALLY IN THERE. CALLUM COULD FREEZE TO DEATH

**Do u even lift, bro?:** Holy overreaction, Batwoman

**Magical Girl™:** While Batwoman is a Gay Icon and I am honored to be compared to her, HAVE YOU MET CALLUM??? His version of weather-preparedness is a SCARF. It’s BELOW FREEZING TONIGHT. Rayla ordered me to “make sure Callum doesn’t die” before passing out after her all-nighter. I MUST UPHOLD MY OATH, SOREN.

**Do u even lift, bro?:** ….so why are u bothering me?

**Magical Girl™:** BECAUSE I’m an RA and I’m on call tonight. I HAVE TO STAY AT THE DORM. I can’t go to Callum in his hour of need. And then I remembered someone who ALWAYS DOES THAT and I texted you.

**Dr. Dolittle:** Please help my brother not freeze to death in a climate-controlled building, Soren.

**Do u even lift, bro?:** Jesus Christ, FINE.  Not like I was DOING anything ALREADY.

**Magical Girl™:** I know, your life is very boring outside of The Sports

**Dr. Dolittle:** The Sports™

**Do u even lift, bro?:** GAH, Fine. I’ll go bring Callum a coat or a blanket or something.

**Magical Girl™:** You bring honor to our family name, brother.

**Do u even lift, bro?:** Shut up.

            Callum just stares at him when he opens the door. Deep purple circles curl under familiar hazel eyes and Callum’s ordinarily tidy enough hair stands up at funny angles. Soren ignores the curl of warm fondness he feels somewhere deep in his stomach at the sight of sharp, snarky Callum all soft and worn around the edges.

            He doesn’t vocalize any of these thoughts, just shoves a Snuggie™ at Callum and says “My sister thinks the computer lab is a walk-in freezer or something so I brought you stuff so you wouldn’t die.”

            Callum takes the Snuggie™, blinking owlishly at the other stuff in Soren’s arms – a thermos full of hot chocolate, more blankets, a puffy winter coat and a hot pink hat with a pom-pom on it he’s 90% sure a great-aunt gave Claudia for Christmas a few years ago and somehow migrated over to his closet.

            “Did you bring dill pickle flavored potato chips?” Callum finally asks dumbly.

            “Yeah, because you’re a freak who likes them.” Soren shrugs and shoves past him. What a heathen. The only flavor worth mentioning are the jalapeño ones.

            “Are you… what are you doing?” Callum asks as Soren settles in, dumping his armful of snacks (including both dill AND jalapeño chips) and wrapping himself in a fleece blanket before settling into the chair next to Callum’s workstation.

            “Eating chips,” Soren says, ripping open his bag and shoving a handful of spicy fried potato goodness directly into his mouth.

            “Are you…staying here…with me?”

            “Yesh,” Soren says around another fistful of chips.

            Callum’s face does something weird and twitchy, “You realize…it’s gonna be really boring for you, right?”

            Soren holds up a magazine and his iPad, “I’m good.”

            “You’re…good…”

            “Cool, we agree,” Soren grins, before shoving the thermos toward Callum, who, as predicted, isn’t even wearing a coat, and Rayla was right, it’s _freezing_ in here. “Drink some hot chocolate.”

            He looks away, going back to his magazine, not expecting much of a response, anticipating Callum will just go back to whatever nerd stuff he was doing before Soren showed up to keep him company. The hug definitely takes him by surprise.

            Wiry arms wrapping around his shoulders, a head of dark, messy hair squashed awkwardly into the crook of his shoulder, bits of flyaway cowlicks tickling Soren’s cheek. It’s a strange angle and Soren’s not really able to reciprocate, but it’s nice all the same. Soren doesn’t really get what stories mean when they talk about characters being able to pick out individual scents from a person when they embrace. He guesses Claudia smells like the scented candles she’s always burning in her room at home (he still hasn’t caught her doing it in the dorms, but someday…) and his father smells like the bland detergent they’ve always used (not that Soren’s father has given him a hug since he started middle school, but still, Soren figures the laundry detergent smells the same).  So he can’t really pin down what Callum smells like (hey, he doesn’t sniff his friends, that’s weird, ok?). But he can say with utter certainty that whatever that smell is, it smells like home. It’s clean and soft and feels just like Callum and Ez’s house on a sunny day when they were small children.

            He’s got one arm free and he wraps it around Callum’s back and squeeze back, as tight as he can.

            “I’ve got your back,” Soren squeezes out of a surprisingly tight throat, “I’ve always got your back.”

            “Yeah, I know,” Callum says, tightening his grip if it’s even possible, “You always do.”

            They stay like that for another minute before Callum clears his throat and goes back to whatever he was working on with the computer and Soren returns to his magazine article.

            It’s nice. Even if the room feels like a meatlocker.

…

**Plus One.**

            “You got sick,” Callum has no right to look that miserable when Soren’s the one whose throat feels like it got assaulted with a ream of sandpaper then generously dosed with salt and left out to fester in the desert sun.

            “ _Yeah,_ ” Soren rasps, sniffles, and coughs hard enough to rattle something in his sore head and make everything hurt _worse._

            “This is my fault,” Callum sighs, stirring a generous dollop of honey into a mug of tea and handing it over, “This is because of the stupid lab.”

            Soren shrugs and sips his tea. He doesn’t really care where he got sick _from_ , he just cares that he feels marginally less like crawling in a deep, dark, hole to _die_ when Callum is here handing him tea.

            Callum huffs a sigh, flails helplessly with his hands for a moment, then drops onto the other end of the couch and tucks his feet under Soren’s legs and turns on the TV, where _The Sorcerer’s Stone_ ’s main menu is already displayed.

            Soren blinks at him, surprised.

            Callum hunches his shoulders up like he doesn’t want to be scrutinized too deeply. “Claudia and Rayla watch _Wonder Woman_ when one of them is sick. You watch _Harry Potter_.”

            “ _How did you know?_ ” Soren rasps.

            Callum gives him a tiny smile and presses play, “I’ve known you pretty much my whole life, Sor, I kinda know how to take care of you.”

            And that. That just kills him. No one’s ever known how to take care of Soren. He’s always had to tell people, and then they get it wrong or don’t understand or scoff like the tiny, irrelevant things that mean the world to him are just as tiny and irrelevant as he always worried they were.  There was one song Claudia used to listen to every time someone broke her heart starting at age 14, and one line was always burned into Soren’s brain.

            _“Who doesn’t long for/someone to hold/who knows how to love you/without being told”_

Soren reaches over and squeezes Callum’s ankle, trying to press all the feelings churning in his chest through layers of blankets and sweatpants and socks, into Callum’s skin if he can.

            Callum reaches over, not looking away from Harry’s arrival at the Dursleys’, to tangle his fingers with Soren’s and squeeze.

            Soren dozes off on the couch halfway through Harry’s first Quidditch game. He resurfaces briefly. The room is quiet except for the ending credits and a gentle calloused hand smooths his hair when he moves to sit up.

            “Shh, rest.”

            “ _Cal_?” he mumble-rasps.

            “Get some sleep,” Callum’s gentle voice orders, “I got you.”

            Soren’s last memory before falling back asleep is Callum pressing a gentle kiss to his forehead and saying, “We’ll talk about this tomorrow, ok?”

            Ok, Soren can live with tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> Fic title from 'Hooked' by Why Don't We


End file.
